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While you were sleeping: Greatness and regrettable moments on skates

At the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea combined momentous achievements with some cases of the Mondays. Norway held steady atop the medal standings with eight total, but now has the Netherlands and Canada, with seven medals apiece, breathing down its neck on account of Dutch dynamism and Canadian glory in different forms of skating. Germany remains in the running for this year’s most decorated nation with six medals to date.

Here’s a look at everything you probably missed from Sunday night and Monday morning, unless you were fighting off insomnia in front of your TV.

Jamie Anderson extends US slopestyle dominance: If America is going to catch Norway in the all-time Winter Olympics standings, slopestyle snowboarding could provide the biggest boost. The Yanks are now 4-for-4 in gold medals at the event, which debuted during the 2014 Sochi Games. A day after 17-year-old Red Gerard topped the men’s field, 27-year-old defended her gold amid perilous conditions by not wiping out. “I was trying not to think, just do.”

Mirai Nagasu makes American history on ice: It took a skate into uncharted territory for the US to slip past Italy and score bronze in team figure skating. Mirai Nagasu came through with a jaw-dropping triple axel — the third by a woman and the first ever by an American female figure skater in Olympic competition — to highlight a clean routine in the women’s free skate. “I would have dreams that I could do this jump, then I would try it on ice and I would fall,” the 24-year-old Californian told Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel. “But I knew in my heart this day would come.”

Canadian gold blazes trail at Winter Olympics: The most important first in the team figure skating event, though, belonged to Eric Radford. His first-place finish in the free skate program, alongside Meagan Duhamel, helped propel Canada to gold and, by extension, made him the first openly gay Winter Olympics champion ever. Radford and Rippon celebrated their historic achievements together at the medal ceremony. Here’s more on Radford’s groundbreaking performance.

Adam Rippon and Mirai Nagasu at Medal Plaza on February 12, 2018 in Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea.

Eights drive Korea crazy: Whatever progress North and South Korea may be making toward reunification, no matter how symbolic, is still miles ahead of where they stand together on the ice. The combined Korean women’s hockey team suffered its second 8-0 loss in as many games in these Olympics, this time on the wrong end of Sweden’s sticks. The historic mixed squad will have one last chance to scratch on Wednesday during its third and final group match against Japan at the Kwandong Hockey Centre. Not all hope is lost for the Koreans, though, if the Norwegian Nobel Committee takes notice.

More broadcast blunders by NBC: As poorly as Korea has performed on the ice, NBC has arguably had a worse Olympics in the booth. First came Joshua Cooper Ramo’s questionable characterization of historical relations between South Korea and Japan during the Opening Ceremony, for which the network apologized on air and subsequently removed the analyst from his post. Then came Katie Couric’s erroneous claim that the Dutch dominate speed skating because it’s “is an important mode of transportation” in the Netherlands. Read up on Ramo’s regrettable remarks.

IOC chief to visit North Korea: The Closing Ceremony on Feb. 25 might be just the beginning of Thomas Bach’s stay on the Korean Peninsula. The president of the International Olympic Committee announced that he will visit the North Korean capital of Pyongyang as part of an agreement between the two Koreas and the IOC. “We are talking about this convenient date in order to continue the dialogue on the sports side,” Bach told Reuters’ Karolos Grohmann. “We will see when this is going to happen.”